


Haunt The World Inside You

by Cunien



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-30
Updated: 2013-09-30
Packaged: 2017-12-28 02:16:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/986486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cunien/pseuds/Cunien
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>About his own heart beating so loud and brave in his chest like it could conquer the fucking world, when all it took was one wrong turn and that noise: to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have it consume instead of roll over him like it had.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Haunt The World Inside You

**Author's Note:**

> This is a fic about the characters from the miniseries Band of Brothers and in no way the real men. I mean no disrespect to anyone please thankyou.
> 
> Originally posted on Livejournal many many years ago. I've edited minimally, but by and large it's a straight repost.

It was so loud it filled his mouth and his nose - blocked them solid with that awful whiteness of noise. He breathed it in and felt it expand inside his lungs like cotton wool, till there was no space for air or life. 

It stung as it seeped through every pore in his skin. It tasted of choking nothingness and smelt of cloying blankness. 

He could see the sound like white waves crashing towards him, swallowing him up. 

It was like every noise that had ever been made since the beginning of time, woven together seamlessly, and it was plucking gleefully at his screams and swirling them into the music.

It sounded like the end of the world.

And then there was nothing. 

The silence was gentle and caressing like the snow that was falling, softly, so softly. The quiet melted against him slowly, gently, easily. Oh it was so easy, just to lie here and not move and not make a sound.

The soft thud of the shell sinking into the fresh dirt around the foxhole took a moment to register. One moment where, if it had not been a dud, Luz would have only the time to recognize the little metal cannister. One millisecond to place it as something he should know, but time for nothing else. No time to add a purpose to the little object. No time to fear.

Perhaps Muck and Penkala hadn’t had the time either. Perhaps they’d been granted only that blessed fraction of a second before the end. No time to fear, or feel pain.

Somehow in the blinding light of all that noise he had found Lipton: now his cheek was softly brushing his as they huddled together.

A cigarette. He took one out in defiance of the urge to remain still. It seemed like the right thing to do. Well, as far as he could tell, at least. A knee jerk reaction perhaps. After meals, after sex, after and before and during everything - George Luz smoked. 

There were no words to say, but his mouth kept trying to say them, opening and closing like a fish. Shove a Lucky Strike in and keep it busy. 

And Lipton took one too, because Luz did, and because there was nothing else to do.

It was later that it started - the shaking - a few cigarettes later. This was a little reprieve you see: it wasn’t time. It wasn’t the Ardennes after a shelling. They were in their own little corner of the earth, here in this foxhole, where the minutes were measured out in cigarettes and you thought about the good stuff in life because you’d almost lost it.

But somehow, when the memory of that blanket of noise had all but faded from his head, he began to think about other sounds. 

About his own heart beating so loud and brave in his chest like it could conquer the fucking world, when all it took was one wrong turn and that noise: to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and have it consume instead of roll over him like it had. 

To have a few more seconds insterted into history - between leaving Lip and crawling on his belly towards that foxhole - a few seconds early and he would have been swallowed up. He would have been a half voiced cry and then....nothing. Nothing like Muck and Penkala.

Without that all encompassing apocalypse of sound there was room for other noises. Like them calling his name. He could recall so clearly the way it sounded when their voices jerked up on their way to nothingness.

It started as a little tremor in his fingers as he reached to pluck the cigarette from his mouth. He hid his hands under his armpits, but still felt them shaking like a leaf. And then his lips began, as though he was trying to fight back a non-existent smile.

Now was not the time for words. But was there any time for them? In a place like this, when you’d seen things like this? If now wasn’t the time, when was it? In two days? Two minutes? He could be dead in two seconds for Christ’s sake.

“Lip.”

Lipton opened his eyes and turned slightly to face the other man, with a faint smile that faded when he saw the way his head was jerking back and forward.

“You okay Luz?”

“Muck and Penkala -” he began, his voice betraying him and rattling emptily.

He tried again. “Muck and Penkala. Got hit.”

“I know. You told me.”

“But - they got hit.”

“I know Luz.”

“I was there.”

“Sure George.” Lip said, quietly, moving a little closer.

“I...ah...” Luz said, casting around for something to say - something sane because Lip was looking at him like he was crazy - but his whole body was juddering so hard he felt like he was sitting in a C47 in turbulence.

“Shit!” he tried to laugh “I can’t stop shaking!”

“You’re okay Luz.” Lip said quietly and in a way that didn’t make him feel stupid and small and like a baby for being so scared all of a sudden. Lip hooked one arm behind Luz’s back and the other one in front, and pulled him gently down till his head was shuddering against the other man’s chest.

“Must be colder than I thought, eh?” he bit out, trying as hard as he could to stay still, to shut up, to grow up.


End file.
